April 10, 2009

Evolution of Fear

Giraffes get longer necks. The giraffe with the longer neck can eat the really nice leaves on the top of the tree, becomes healthier and sexier and scores more. Thus we have more giraffes with longer necks. That's evolution. Evolution for right wing talk show hosts means hosts get more and more insane over time. The crazier they are, the more you can't stop watching. Madness is the comparative advantage of right wing talk.

The natural outcome of this evolutionary process is Glenn Beck. Case in point:

This is insane. And completely expected. Glenn Beck is the walking personification of fear winning out over reason:

Fear of what? Take your pick. Fear that the U.S. is on a long march to fascism. (As evidence, Beck cited — on April Fools' Day but apparently seriously — the inclusion of fasces on the Mercury dime in 1916.) That fat cats and bureaucratic "bloodsuckers" are plundering your future. That Mexico will collapse and chaos will pour over the border. That America believes too little in God and too much in global warming. That "they" — Big Government, Big Business, Big Media — are against you. Above all, that you, small-town, small-business America — Palinville — have been forgotten. Dismissed. Laughed at. Just like him.